A Question of Colour
by gottalovett
Summary: A series of Ruth/Harry smallish chapters exploring how a post series nine more mature understanding is reached and Ruth can remember how to love again. Each chapter has its own poem.
1. Chapter 1

_Some Ruth drabble. Because I can. And because I was thinking about Nicola's comment on mutual understanding whilst cooking dinner and this fluff unfurled in my head and refused to budge. _

_This piece is for Lady J. Who thanks to Peter Firth likes this colour ever so much. _

_The poem is the one Ruth quotes in 3.7; The coming of the ship by Khalal Gibrain. _

* * *

Her colour/his colour was blue. Blue was the bad times. Blue was feeling down and blue was sorrow and blue was grief. But blue was also the colour of the sea that crashed onto the golden sands of Greece, her second home. It was the colour of the deep, of the unknown, of coolness, of maturity, of tender understanding. And it was so much more.

She looked up and soft, enveloping dark blue was the colour of the night sky. The blue winked with white lights and symbolised a kind of hope. It was a starry night and blue was This and blue was the colour of salty tears. But they were no longer tears of despair. They were tears of joy. That the world could be quite this beautiful, that she could find it quite this beautiful. That the taste of salt from the drops rolling down her cheeks did not mean a soup pot of painful emotions. That they meant something else altogether and the colours were blue and yet _it was alright _because her soul was no longer a nasty navy blue, and she felt only calm.

_Ready am I to go,  
and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind._

_Only another breath will I breathe in this still air,  
Then I shall stand among you. _

And he was there next to her. His breath was warm against her neck, his arm draped across her chest and it felt right. It felt right for them to be here under such a vast, open canopy (even if she wasn't quite back in Greece.) It felt right to be here on a deserted beach under this British summer sky. He woke as she sat up and wrapped her hands about her knees like a little girl. Full of innocence. He looked her in the face (and she him) and smiled as she put her hand in his. He wiped the tears away and kissed her and it felt right. It felt good. It felt sweet (maybe she was that little girl of wonder again/maybe the magic was Him.)

The colour of his unbuttoned shirt was blue. And that was love, that was desire, that was completeness all at once and she laughed suddenly as she pulled the shirt off him and ran down to the sea. Her own flowing blue top and skirt were splashed with salty waves but it didn't matter to her/him (it felt good to no longer be separate entities). And he laughed/she laughed as they splashed about like toddlers in the night-time waves (a force of nature or simply desire personified?).

Their love isn't hot and passionate and red. Not anymore. That kind of love burnt, petered out, curled up and died in the end. This is a shiny new thing and this time she knows it can last a lifetime.

_And you, vast sea, sleepless mother,  
Who alone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream,  
Only another winding will this stream make, only another murmur in this glade,  
And then shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean.  
_

And I/you shall never leave again. By your side I/you shall be. Until the end of days.

* * *

I was thinking it could be kind of fun for people to give me Ruth/Harry poetry prompts and I could try and write a piece of drabble for each poem. I would enjoy that if people think this is a good idea.


	2. Chapter 2

_OK, so I have deicded to write a series of drabbles that talk about different points of the Ruth/Harry relationship, bookended by hopeful and happier, more accepting moments that occur after the events of series nine. Think of this as kind of like a jig saw puzzle. Eventually the pieces will all come together, and how they get to the point they do in the first piece of this will make sense. _

_The poem is a Chinese one translated into English written by Li Shang- Yin the 9th century. I adapted two words slightly because the translation really didn't seem right and it just worked better if I adjusted the word usage. _

_The story book mentioned is Charlotte's Web._**_

* * *

_**

**_Past, Falling_**

(It is a time of priests and tears and flowers full of meaning till at last I am alone to think/ to grieve.)

_The guests are gone from the pavilion high,_

_In the small garden flowers are whirling around._

(I think...it is time for me to think... time to come to some sort of terms of understanding)

There was a shot. There was screaming and the pain of a heart being ripped out of her chest was palpable. There was Nico led away inside, sheltered. There was a small bullet hole and a dead George on the grass of the Nameless House. This makes Greece a tragic interlude, a lost Paradise or does it? She was never truly happy there; not in the word's truest sense. She remembered the wine drinking and the communal cooking and the swimming pool and the lap of an ocean not very far away, but George's smile, it was fading as she fell more and more asleep to that older, simplified life.

There had always been a measured lie about her relationship with George and yet he had not cared in the end. She had looked him in the eye and said, 'my heart is long ago sold to another,' and he had not cared because he had loved her and when you are in love, he had said, you take what small happiness's you can get in the hopes that the sunshine of Summer and Spring will last you another season.

And there had been the brown eyed boy. Motherless. Every morning, for the first month of her seeing George, Nico had brought her flowers; vinca blossoms. Now, at George's funeral he had helped her put a wreath of them on George's coffin.

There was silence but for the two of them. They took little comfort in each other. Nico was going home with _You failed me newfound mother _wrapped inside his heart and maybe he was right. She was learning how to be bitter and paupered and self absorbed and suffering and these were not emotions a small boy could understand. "I do not like that you have forgotten how to smile," he had said seriously.

_Along the winding path the petals lie;_

_To greet the setting sun, they drift up from the ground._

Nico knelt down/ rose up/ held a poppy petal in his hand. She cannot see anything in its velvety depths but red for the colour of blood. He says, "Flowers die like we do, but this petal has fallen and it is not dead yet. Smile today, for who knows what tomorrow will bring and father loved you so much he wanted you to _always _get some joy out of life."

(And with this knowledge he turns and walks away and into the Church, leaving me in my numb and silent grief. Can I start to live again? After George can I live again?)

_Heartbroken, I cannot bear to sweep the petals away;_

_From my eyes, spring soon disappears._

She does not want to put away the mourning robes. She does not want to stop wearing blue for an unseen ocean of tears just yet. She does not want to put these memories away when she can still live in them and feel from them and punish herself in them.

It doesn't matter that Harry still loves and she loves in return. There is too little time and yet all of time and space is watching and self torture gives some definition to events that she doesn't think Harry understands.

_I pine with passing, heart's desire lost forever;_

(The death of George is the death of love. At least for now when I fear too much trying to pick up broken pieces and starting again.)

_Nothing is left but a robe stained with tears._

(Tears are not just for George or for Harry or for me. They are for those who I have known who have died and whose lives have been torn apart. Danny and Jo and Fiona and Adam; can you see me now and do you like what I have become? Oh, oh Danny... you were always there for me, but, why are you not here now?)

Contemplation is the new life code. The Chinese poets agree.

(But do you Danny? Do you believe in shields and armour and enforced solitude? If you were here what would you be saying to me now?)

There are no Heaven sent answers. She walks into the Church and faces the sympathetic hordes. There is a storybook in her head. _Summer is dying, dying, Summer is over and gone, Summer is gone, Summer is dying, dying. Summer is dead, dying, dead. Summer is over and out._

For her, for now, it is. The only fact that has permanency in a cruel and confusing universe is this. And that's all anyone else needs to know.

* * *

_Sorry for the downer that this drabble is but it's kind of necessary for the rest of the drabbles. Hope someone likes this? Feel free to suggest poems for future drabble._


	3. Chapter 3

_Ok, so these are so not drabbles anymore. Whoops guys. I don't own the characters or the scripted dialouge. The really great heart breaking conversational bits are the Spooks script from 9.1. The poem is the last stanza of Shake Hands by A. E Houseman. And now for some series nine Harry angst :P_

_

* * *

_

**Past: In stasis**

He has been sitting at the bench for bare minutes that feel like the agony of hours. She has still not come. Has she finally decided never again? His breath catches. She is walking towards him, perfect in her inadequacies and that at least will never change. He feels past and present overlap, spirits or ghosts reach out to easier, less intimate and yet somehow more hopeful times and give him the courage to say what he needs to say.

_We sit at the bench and it hurts to remember once upon a time we were here before. (Though were we really? Was that not an entire lifetime ago? Is the fluffy white coat you still own an indication of a long ago You gently slumbering. Can I find what's shattered and put it back together?) But you are still Ruth and I will still love and we/you/I can never get away from that. God damn it woman! I. won't let you. We never come to physical blows. Sometimes I wish we would/wish we could._

"There'll always be something between us Ruth." He gets up. He walks away.

* * *

It had seemed that Ruth was recovering. "Harry. Would you like to go out for a drink." But then Ros had happened and the drink had sat untouched and the ground she had made was fragile and with Ros gone the emotions boiled under, and the ice sealed over and no one could get in. Not even him.

* * *

He made a belated effort to make a declaration. Ros' funeral was just another dot, another marker of how far he had come with this job in keeping on keeping on. He wondered if with Ruth it were different? He worshipped her for her compassion and her humanity, but he also knew it cost her. _She read poetry and said she wanted to grieve but in this job Ruth you can't ever. Not too much. _

"Harry, I need to talk to you."

He set his shoulders and tried not to look quite so melancholy, quite so defeated. "A turn about the grounds." Had Ruth ever liked 19th century fiction, or had he just made that up in an effort to force another connection?

They stood at the church fence, looking out over meadows and it was nothing like Ros at all and Ruth wondered, even as he wondered, why had she picked this place. "An Enigma to the last."

"I feel like she was trying to tell us something," Ruth said, looking out over that vast expanse of green, her thoughts flying off someplace Harry could never, ever follow.

He wasn't concentrating on her words. Not anymore. He leaned in intimately, his mouth against her ear. "Ruth. Marry me."

"This is neither the time nor the place."

"This is exactly the time and the place."

"It.. .it's the funeral. It's made you emotional."

He sighed because he knew the cause was already lost. "No. It's made me see clearly. Six people came to Ros' funeral Ruth. _Six_ people. I don't want that for me and I _don't_ want that for you."

"You're timing is all wrong."

"Timing is nothing."

"Timing is _everything_."

And she's right. All of the signals are wrong. His hand is on her arm but the warmth doesn't radiate through beyond the skin. He doesn't tingle. Not anymore. Ros is dead but part of the Ice Queen lives on in Ruth, until the exterior cracks/glass shatters and she is broken. He suddenly shudders remembering Tom. The gun shot and the lick of the ocean waves against the shore. Danny and Zoe standing in solidarity (they had told him that later). The skyline reaching out, snatching and taking Tom somewhere Harry couldn't follow, stuck as he was in a speeding ambulance and a different head space. Calm, steadfast, thoughtful Tom Quinn; where had that gotten him in the end but decommissioned? He held it in and Ruth had known and Harry had done nothing and _then __it had been too late_.

_Oh blame game, why don't you keep this guilt coming, this guilt of knowing I see this happen time and time again and keep going anyway and stop insisting, please stop insisting, I will let it happen to Ruth too. _

_I change the subject and you give me that folder and I am at last defeated because there is nothing more I can do or say. _

_

* * *

_

"Is it all just Maths Ruth?"

"You know sometimes I think it is."

_So I do the mental arithmetic. Tom left, Zoe left (I couldn't save her and do you blame me for that too?), Danny died and there was not enough time, for us, for you, for anyone because another bomb went off (was it counting down to zero for our relationship even then?), Sam couldn't take it (why did I never ask you about that/ why did I leave this unsaid?), Colin died (Did you take up Malcolm's pain? Did you take it upon yourself to feel his guilt? Passive, I let another death go), Zaf died, Jo died, Adam blew up in spectacular Adam fashion, George died (Why didn't you wait Ruth/should you have waited/it was your life Ruth so then why do I resent him still?), and now Ros... well Ruth, you and Ros were complicated and that... that stagnated too. Another damn thing left unsaid. Another entanglement we never even tried to untie._

"I think we've forfeited that chance Harry. You and me. The things we've seen together, the things we've done...we couldn't be more together than we are right now." Wrong Ruth. He breathes in and out heavily. He's a grown man trying not to cry. He doesn't understand, can't ever understand because all he can see, all he wants is that house with them both in it. It's possible. So why can't she see that.

But he changes the subject as her voice catches. They have exhausted all conversational avenues. He knows this thing between them is finished.

_Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over;  
I only vex you the more I try.  
All's wrong that ever I've done or said,  
And nought to help it in this dull head:  
Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye. _

_

* * *

_

And now I have managed to convince myself there is no hope left for Ruth and Harry, which means next chapter is dealing with 9.7 and 9.8 and is HOPEFUL so I can cheer myself up.


	4. Chapter 4

_Starts of angsty but then everything turns into a bit of a fairytale because I'm like that sometimes and because there's only so much Ruth misery I can deal with before I crack. Also, I realised whilst writing this that I have my own random canon for various characters that wended its way into my fic. Hope no one minds. The poem quoted at the end by Dimitri is called Ode to Hope (how appropriate) by Neruda. Enjoy :)_

_

* * *

_The strain of the past few days, hours, seconds is too much and she breaks down. She senses Tariq behind her, instead of manly and stoic; there are trickles of water at the corner of his eyes too and it reminds her of just how young he really is. Standing behind her ever so silently is another chance for him to give a show of solidarity (she knows a part of him loves her in that childish adolescent idealistic love kind of way; the kind of helpless puppy dog love that never _quite_ wears away.) His fingers even now could be about to reach out and offer comfort around her shoulder but she knows he will never quite dare (It's like that with idols. You get afraid that if you get too close they will crumble. The reality is always dustier than the image you build up for yourself.)

It doesn't matter anyway. Her fingers are across her face and her whole body moves in motion with her tears. Does she cry for Harry? Does she cry for the Lucas that she thought she knew who let his own moment of definition go? In the end he went as silently as Tariq's tears; no fanfare, no moment of tribulation and epiphany, his feet and his heart and his mind led him off a building. That was all. (Stop questioning that which is known- is there no end to human cruelty? Greece wasn't so idyllic it cancelled out love and the wine bottles weren't drunk because of immeasurable happiness only it was those things that were withheld and went unsaid.)

* * *

He's standing on the balcony listening to the Home Secretary lay out the facts. "They're throwing you out into the cold, Harry." Of course, they would, it's just what _they_ did best. "I'd prepare for life after the force if I were you." There's no one. The one woman he sees in the twilight doesn't want him anymore. She'd specified that. (What life is there left in this balding middle aged existence?)

He stands and frowns at the receding sky line and resents it.

* * *

Ruth does not place a hand on his. She does not touch him at all. In her mind, she had given up that right when she sent him to face Lucas with hardness and pain in her eyes and voice and heart. She just stands there and wonders how long it will take for his sixth sense to intervene.

Not long it turns out. He turns. "Ruth?" His voice is ragged. Perhaps he too has been crying?

"I made a mistake," she says steadily. She draws closer to him. She repeats it with as much emotion as she can muster. "I made a mistake."

He doesn't say anything.

"Everything I have told you before now about... us... has always been a lie, but I won't make the same mistake Lucas did and let the growing lie and the discovery of it rule over me forever. I can't keep being passive. I can't keep claiming I don't feel, or that I don't have a heart that loves, because I do. This job, what it does to us, I don't think I'll ever come to terms with that and it's because I feel so deeply that I cannot. I was so afraid that I was becoming desensitised, that one day I'd wake up and the deaths would no longer matter, the sacrifices would no longer matter and so I confused these things with you, with my love for you, and let it poison what we could have had."

She talks like one in a dream. She has wanted to articulate these fears since Tom waded into the blue and vanished, no even before that, when she had first realised Tom was on his way out.

"I think I..." she stopped and looked at Harry who had his mouth set in a hard line. "I'm talking too much and selfishly about myself. Harry, I should have said earlier that I love you."

Finally Harry spoke, colourless. "Albany was a fake, Ruth. I didn't give up a real state secret, not for you, not for Lucas."

She put one hand over his where it rested on the balcony. "Can you forgive me Harry?"

"Only if you can forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive- not anymore."

He looks pensieve. "They're throwing me out to the wolves Ruth. Will you stand by me on this one?"

She put her head against his chest and whispered into it, "Yes."

His fingers keep her against him. He is smiling. "I love you Ruth. I want to grow old with you."

And then they say nothing at all. Ruth is finally held and wanted like she's always wished to be, and Harry has his dream in his arms and real hope in his heart.

* * *

Dimitri saw Ruth walk up in the direction of the roof. He bit his lip and ducked his head hoping nobody would notice. (If he had looked around he would have seen Tariq restful against his keyboard, staring slack jawed at the place where Ruth had stood and the desolation in his eyes.) Dimitri didn't see. He put his own barely formulated feelings away, and decided to throw away that particular key. (Just because someone spoke your language and understood your country didn't make them yours.) There was always Beth after all, she of the lovely eyes and the acerbic wit. Besides, Dimitri had always loved a happy ending.

He remembered Greece; the pounding soothing blue of the ocean and the clear skies. He breathed in and out, slowly. Dimitri imagined Ruth and Harry locked in the embrace that they should have been in years ago. He was surprised. He was strangely pleased rather than jealous. Then he put those thoughts behind him. It was the future that mattered now, he thought, as he began to recite a poem for the two above like a prayer. His mother had loved it and so had he (because Mum had).

"_Oceanic dawn_

_at the center_  
_of my life._

_Waves like grapes,  
the sky's solitude,  
you fill me  
and flood  
the complete sea,  
the undimished sky,  
tempo  
and space,  
seafoam's white  
battalions,  
the orange earth,  
the sun's  
fiery waist  
in agony,  
so many  
gifts and talents,  
birds soaring into their dreams,  
and the sea, the sea,  
suspended  
aroma,  
chorus of rich, resonant salt,  
and meanwhile,  
we men,  
touch the water,  
struggling and hoping,  
we touch the sea  
hoping."_

Beth looks up as Dimitri pauses. "What are you quoting, Dimitri."

"Nothing," he grins sheepishly.

She looks at him hard. Something unspoken passes between them and he sees that somehow she understands. She ends the poem.

_"And the waves tell the firm coast;_  
_"Everything will be fulfilled."_

Dimitri's mouth curls into a smile. There's a similar one on Beth's face. They feel, for all the world, like the only ones in the room.

Everything feels vindicated, justified and _possible_...

It's a lovely feeling.

* * *

_Poor Tariq has no one :( Dimitri just wrote himself into this fic. Whoops. I like him though, so he is allowed to hijack my Ruth/Harry stories. Hope you feel more hopeful and happy after the doom and gloom of the last two chapters :P I tried to be kind._


	5. Chapter 5

__

The poem is Say It by

_Xuân Diệu and is translated from Vietnamese. The biblical verse is 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 and 13. It also happens to be one of my favourite Biblical verses._

_

* * *

_

**Future: Calling**

Harry had been decommissioned in the end and Ruth stood up, awash in the blue she loved, took his hand and led him off The Grid. Shocked delight was Harry, horrified Home Secretary ('I just lost our greatest asset'), sad but acknowledging Beth, Dimitri and Tariq and so it's all's well that ends well (If you can call getting fired a happy ending).

_I have an immense desire, did you know?  
And absolute, too. I'm in constant search of you.  
If today's truth is truth no longer tomorrow,  
How can, my dear, love ever be old too?_

The ocean's salt is upon both their lips and Ruth's hair hangs in matted strings. Happiness is a day at the beach with a lover.

"I love you," she whispers.

He is pensieve. "How will they manage without me?"

"They'll do fine."

Wry smile. "I'll miss them. Will you?"

"Always, but it was them or you." She traces shapes onto his bare chest. "Harry, I love you." Repetition is necessary she feels, after all they've been through together and apart.

His smile is as radiant as the bursting sun. "Oh Ruth darling- I love you too."

_Be deeply in love, but that is still not enough.  
You've got to say love, hundreds, no, thousands of times.  
Be so loving that every night is one of spring,  
And birds and butterflies freed in the love garden. _

_Say it, you must say it, you must. _

She makes it right. "I was wrong to leave it as something left unsaid. Love isn't something to be mocked or fooled with, not when love is for life."

He smiled thinking of church spires and priests from his childhood. He whispered and he felt the words to be true, "_Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."_

Ruth whispered, "_Love never fails...And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."_

She leant back into his embrace and closed her eyes. His hands ran over her bare breasts and down her body and came to rest against her stomach.

"We'll have stories to tell our children, exciting ones, frightening ones, and we'll make sure that someone at least remembers our friends who have fallen."

Ruth could still see Danny before her, but his face was fainter now and less painful to envisage and she could see that he was smiling.

"What will you do with yourself?" she murmured.

"Oh- we'll have enough to get by on my enforced retirement package. I'll potter in the garden and make our cottage lovely."

She still sees the faces; they float, projected before her. Jo's big blue eyes aren't in pain anymore and she can see straight through Ros to the vulnerability and the sensitivity beneath. Colin has an arm around Danny. Zaf holds Jo's hand. Lucas stands slightly behind Ros, his eyes are still confused but she thinks she sees his mouth move and she imagines his lips form "sorry."

"Harry. I'm going to write a novel," she says.

They all smile at her and nod and wink out. Lucas is the last to go. She reaches out one finger to touch him and he vanishes.

"I want to remember them all Harry." _Finally darling, I come to terms with it all, finally I have time to grieve and yet still be happy with you._

He smiles and nods and then lies back in the grainy sand. She lies on top of him. They make love on the deserted beach.

_With words that dwell privy in your eyes and your brows  
With joy, bashfulness, and ecstasy at dusk,  
With head cuddling, smile on your lips, and grasping arms,  
With wordless intensity, what else do I know! _

The baby in her belly kicks. She touches her stomach protectively. Harry smiles. She smiles. Everything has come together.

Even the spirits know it

* * *

_And the end guys whoo hoo. My wrist hurts from typing so off to take a break now from fan fic writing._


End file.
